


Something's Coming

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Series: The Lion, the Wolf and the Dragon [31]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Homecoming, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Reunions, Winterfell, celebration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 00:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: "Cersei is dead," Sansa read out loud.





	Something's Coming

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, the next part to the series that WILL be finished, despite season 8 being almost over (along with the show itself). Enjoy and let me know what you think, as always!

“Cersei is dead,” Sansa read out loud, and the room erupted in cheers.

 

It took several minutes for the Northerners to quiet down, and even Sansa couldn’t keep the smile from her face, reading the words over and over. _Cersei Lannister has been executed by Arya Stark._ The scroll was signed by Tyrion Lannister, a relief to Sansa; she knew his hand, and trusted his words.

 

Jon managed to shush the room in order for Sansa to say, “My sister is returning North with half of the Unsullied army, a gesture of goodwill from the Dragon Queen that she will join us for the war against the Night King as soon as she is able. Arya will likely be here by the next full moon with the Unsullied and the Wildlings; the Greyjoys are coming by the sea, and will be here shortly as well.” At the mention of Daenerys Targaryen, the excitement in the room dimmed a little.

 

“Is there any word of His Grace retaining his title?” Lord Umber asked.

 

“As we agreed before, on Dragonstone, that will be discussed _after_ the Night King is defeated,” Jon said firmly. “For now, we must focus on the war to come.” And they were; when Jon was at Dragonstone what seemed like so long ago, he had confirmed the presence of dragonglass on the island. With permission from Daenerys, mining had begun immediately. Ever since, regular shipments of dragonglass arrived almost every week. The forge was working hard to make weapons from it.

 

Sansa left the weapons and strategy to Jon because, even after spending time with Ramsey and his boasting, her knowledge of battle was still limited. Instead, she sat down with the numbers she had hated as a child and began calculating how long their stores would last. As they stood now, they had enough for the North to withstand the winter. But with another army coming, it would be stretched too thin. Something needed to be done, or they risked starving when it would matter the most.

 

Jaime Lannister, to her great surprise, was of help. “Before I joined Robert’s Kingsguard, I was to be the Lord of Casterly Rock,” he explained. “I hated him for it, but my father ensured that I knew how to run a castle and its kingdom.” She didn’t like the man, far from it, but Brienne spoke to him warmly, and often spent time sparring with him in the yard, doing her best to better his fighting style.

 

He was lucky that Arya’s and Daenerys’ ravens arrived before he did, or Lady Stoneheart might have killed him on the spot. As it was, the Lady had begun to isolate herself in the solar and hadn’t even been present when he arrived at the gates. In fact, Sansa didn’t think she had seen them in the same room once since his arrival. All the better for him, she supposed, but she thought she might have liked to see Lady Stoneheart smack him like she had Brienne when she’d first met her again.

 

He was present against the wall. She noticed he stood separately from the Northerners, and they from him – no love lost there, she supposed. Whatever his relationship with the Northerners, his jaw was clenched, as was his remaining fist. Perhaps he had pledged to help the North, but Arya had made it clear in her letter that Jaime Lannister had made it clear to the Dragon Queen that he would not involve himself in the war against his sister.

 

_Evidently that doesn’t matter anymore,_ Sansa thought privately.

 

There were calls for celebration, the North eager for a feast and a break, but Jon shot them down quickly: “When my sister and her company arrive, we _must_ begin making plans to travel to the Wall,” he said. “We should not wait for the Night King to destroy it and murder us in our beds.”

 

The remaining Northern lords were to their castles, with instructions to be back at Winterfell with their men and supplies by the next full moon. Those not present were sent ravens at once. Three weeks, by Sansa’s estimation. She hoped it was enough time.

 

Ser Jaime did not leave with the rest of the men, but remained against the wall, staring at the table in front of him. For a moment, Sansa felt a pang of sympathy for the man. He had lost nearly everything, just as she had, and had been through has much pain. But she fought it down, because he belonged to the family who had murdered her own. And he had chosen to leave Cersei of his own volition to save what might be the best part of it, according to Arya and Jaime himself. He didn’t deserve her sympathy, but he did deserve the truth.

  
So she gave it to him.

 

“Here,” she said. He startled a little, like he hadn’t realized she was still in the room. It took him another moment to look down at the scroll in her hand. “It’s Tyrion’s writing,” she explained. “You’ll recognize it, I think.”

 

He took it slowly, not looking away from her. “Why are you giving me this?”

 

Sansa held his gaze and shrugged. “Proof that it’s true, and not a trick from your sister,” she answered. After a second’s hesitation, she added, “Closure, if you want it.”

 

She turned to leave, and only stopped when he called after her, “My Lady.” When she looked back, he went on, “You move quietly. Quite like your sister.”

 

It gave her pause, then a smile.

 

Comparisons were made between her and Arya all the time when they were younger, but no one had ever drawn up a similarity.

 

**

 

Sightings of Wights at the Wall were becoming more and more frequent, according to the most recent raven received from Edd Tollet at the Wall. Petyr Baelish and the Knights of the Vale were keeping them updated as well, but at the moment it seemed that the Wights were converging on Castle Black. A straight shot to Winterfell then, if the army of the dead succeeded in breaching the Wall.

 

Jon insisted that they would not succeed.

 

Sansa no longer prayed, but she found herself in the godswood more than once during a spare moment, thinking of how much she hoped Jon was right. Women and children were already filing into the Grey Keep, filling in the empty spaces left by the departed lords. The bare bones of an army would be left to defend Winterfell and its inhabitants against the dead if the North did not hold fast against them.

 

They would die, every one of them. And even worse, they would rise again.

 

It’s where Podrick, Brienne’s squire, found her, under the enormous tree and its red face, staring at the hot springs that still bubbled merrily despite the cold and snow. “My Lady,” he said, and there was something in his expression that had Sansa bolting to her feet, heart racing. “You’re needed at the gates.”

 

She didn’t know what to think of his words, turning them over and over in her head, because it was far too soon for Arya to be here. Podrick’s expression betrayed nothing but utter bemusement, and he only shook his head when she asked what was wrong. “You’d best see for yourself.”

 

She saw tears streaming down Jon’s face before anything else, and her heart lurched horribly in her chest. She scanned his hands frantically, looking for the scroll in them, the one that would announce that something had gone horribly wrong, that Arya was dead, but he held nothing but another hand. Her gaze slid to the person’s it belonged to, and she couldn’t breathe. If seeing Arya had been a shock, and seeing the shadow of her mother an icy shiver down her spine, then this was enough for her legs to go numb and the air in her lungs to catch completely.

 

“Sansa,” Bran said, and she collapsed into his open arms.

 

**

 

He knew that Rickon was dead before they told him; he was the one who said it out loud. He still cried.

 

“I’d hoped I was wrong,” he said.

 

He was thin, face drawn, but he looked good considering everything. His hair was longer than it had ever been, hanging about an inch past his shoulders. He ate and drank with one hand, the other clasped in Lady Stoneheart’s, who refused to let go. Bran didn’t seem to mind.

 

He had come with a girl, the daughter of Howland Reed, who had fought with Ned Stark so long ago. She was pretty in the way that Arya was pretty, in that Sansa knew she probably hadn’t been a very good-looking child, but had grown into her features. Meera was a fierce girl. _She has to be, to get Bran past the Wall and back_ , Sansa thought.

 

It was a long, complicated story that made less sense the more she heard. Jon sat silent, perplexed, occasionally reaching out to touch Bran’s shoulder, so it was up to Sansa to try to sort it out. “You have…visions?” It was the simplest start, really.

 

Bran nodded, and she ached with how grown-up he was, even with his eyebrows scrunching in confusion the way they had when he was just a boy. “I still have a difficult time getting through them,” he admitted. “I _saw_ Rickon’s death, but I thought it was a dream until the Three-Eyed Raven said otherwise.”

 

The Three-Eyed Raven, it seemed, was who he had travelled so far to find.

 

Hodor had left with them, as had a Wildling woman who had died protecting Rickon, and Meera’s brother. “They’re gone,” Meera said shortly when Sansa asked.

 

“The dead are closer than you think,” Bran told them. “The White Walkers are behind them. They’re…waiting, but I don’t know – I can’t see what they’re waiting for.” He shook his head. “We had to leave before the Three-Eyed Raven could finish teaching me focus. I still need the Weirwood trees to really narrow in on things.”

 

“What all do you see?” Jon asked.

 

Bran shrugged. “The past, mostly. I know how the Night King became what he was, and who the Three-Eyed Raven was before. I can see the present sometimes, but it’s all in flashes. It’s hard unless I have a…connection, to who or what I’m looking for.” He looked at Sansa. “The first thing I saw was you and Ramsey, once the Three-Eyed Raven encouraged me to look past what he was teaching me. I’m sorry.”

 

Sansa’s stomach plummeted to her feet, but she did nothing except sink her fingers into Summer’s fur. The direwolf had taken his seat next to her, but his eyes never left Bran.

 

Lady Stoneheart’s free hand came to her throat. “ _Hurt_?”

 

Bran shook his head. “No, it doesn’t hurt, not usually. It did at first, but I was trying too hard to sort through all of the images in my head. I mostly just let them come to me now. I figure out what they mean later, if I can.”

 

“If you tell us, perhaps we can help,” Jon suggested.

 

But Bran shook his head. “Not yet, I think.” And there was something hidden in the words, something important, Sansa thought, but he was already moving on. “There’s too much, but I think it’ll be a little easier now that I’m home.”

 

_Home,_ Sansa thought, and smiled.

 


End file.
